Acid blistered her throat as she heaved the contents of her stomach. There wasn't much in it, yet she couldn't stop retching until nothing except bile came out. A hand held back her hair, another stroked her spine. She heard Nakul's murmured words without really listening. "It's okay, it's over now."
Was it?
Shrugging him off, she pulled the knob, flushing her sick. Any other day, Nakul seeing her in this state would've been embarrassing. However right now her mind won't stop replaying images. Not those of what had occurred merely thirty minutes ago, but of other, earlier times.
She saw Brigesh babu kicking Kamal into a pulp. She saw his men setting Rani ablaze. She saw a long, bleeding gash on Champa's face, drawn on her skin with Vishal's knife. She saw his open palm land on Sunanda's cheek. She saw him point a loaded gun at Nakul, and then at his own wife.
Other senses joined her mind, supplementing the images. She felt his nails digging into her neck. She heard Kamal's cries. She smelled the soot from flames consuming the Ramlila stage.
Her body was playing a movie. A feature length propaganda film to justify what had happened today. Madhu hated it.
Somehow, Nakul managed to half-walk, half-carry her to the bedroom, tucking her under a layer of thin blankets. She caught his wrist before he could leave.
"Stay."
He did. Gathering her until she was comfortable in the familiar nooks of his body, Nakul stayed. And soon the movie faded into a blank reel.
She woke up two hours later to a room bathed in the hue of dusk. Her phone was ringing, and she reached over to the nightstand to look at it.
It was the Superintendent.
"Hello?"
"Miss Thakur? I just rang to say that Vishal is stable now, still out of it, but he'll recover."
Exhaling loudly, she slumped on her pillows. She wasn't sure what exactly she'd been hoping for but was relieved he wasn't actually dead.
"Okay, that's good, thank you Sir."
"You should also note," he paused to consider his next words, "I came to know from his lawyer that he'll be filing an FIR."
"Right," she said without feeling. "Thanks for telling me. And for everything else you've done today. Thank you."
"It's my job."
Then why weren't you doing it till now?
Madhu didn't say that though. Instead she thanked him again before hanging up.
She left her room and then the house. The field behind her house still sported the same grass, only it had grown even more in the past month or so that she'd been in Bhabra.
Had it only been a month? It felt like a lifetime.
The old granary at the end of the field, Nakul's current workshop, was lit a bright yellow. A stark contrast to the sunset pink surrounding the field. He turned his chair when she entered, facing her. She sat on the same plastic stool she had taken on her first night here.
He wasn't a vague childhood memory anymore. He was the man she had learned a new language for. Who had listened to her, laughed with her, protected her countless times. Who, as she had confided in the Pundit, was the source of her happiness.
She loved him, she knew that; was absolutely sure of it. But was that enough?
"Satish just left," he said, reaching for his thermos and pouring her a cup of chai. "He told Sunanda what happened."
"What did she say?"
"That she'll be back by midnight. Not a word about Vishal."
She sipped on her lukewarm chai. Its disgusting taste a welcome distraction from having to voice what they both were probably thinking.
"Well he's stable now," Madhu said once the silence became too long. "SP saab called."
"I guess that's good,"
"Good for who?"
"Everyone involved."
"Yeah?" she asked, tone slightly mocking. "Then they'll be happy to know that he's filing a case against them."
"But that'll only expose him."
"Except he has physical proof of their crimes, we don't."
"Their crimes?" Nakul repeated, incredulous. "You mean when they reached the tipping point of their tolerance with all the threats, extortions, cattle stealing, kidnapping—"
"Yes. When they reached the tipping point and gave him the moral high ground."
"I can't fucking believe you."
"I'm sorry was I the only person who saw what happened today? Were you not there?"
"It was unfortunate."
"It was barbaric."
"But I don't exactly feel for Vishal."
"Neither do I." Suddenly sensing a drop in her energy, Madhu placed the empty chai cup on the ground next to her feet. "I know Vishal is a psychopath but even he didn't deserve—"
"He murdered Sunanda's baby."
"We don't know that," she whispered. "It's her word against his."
"Well I trust her."
"Even if it is true, Sunanda didn't torture him, the villagers did."
"She's done a lot for the villagers, maybe it was their way to repay her."
"Would you stop defending them?" she snapped. "I tried to help them, thinking they're my people, thinking that's what Ma would've wanted. For weeks I've been trying to compensate for selling my place here, to make sure they're not completely abandoned but today proved that I don't owe Bhabra anything."
"You're selling this place?" His voice was quiet, muted, and yet sent daggers in her gut. "That's what you came here to tell me? You're leaving?"
"I came here to tell you that Vishal wasn't the only one violated today." Though he was wearing the device Madhu made sure to enunciate each word slowly, so he won't miss a single thing. "But now that you've proven you condone what they did, I don't want anything to do with you or Bhabra."
He stared at her for a long time. Madhu was expecting a clap back or further justification. She was hoping for it. But all he said was, "I'll remove my stuff then."
Chikki's whining was getting on her nerves.
Madhu had dragged him from the courtyard early the next morning, away from where he'd been snuggling with Gayatri. Kamal had helped her arrange the haphazardly packed suitcases in her Honda while his mother pushed a large steel tiffin in her hands mumbling, "For the journey."
"The offer still stands you know?" she had told Champa and Suman when they were hugging her goodbye. "I can set you up with other jobs if you don't like Jasm Inn."
Madhu gripped the steering tighter when she recalled their polite yet quick refusal. As the lonely fields of Northern UP sped past her, she couldn't help but think that their no meant they were on his side. That dumb conclusion made her more angry than sad, and she was grateful for it. At least anger wasn't making her eyes water.
Almost five hundred kilometres away from her, a young journalist—editor of a crime beat section—sat up straight after reading her correspondent's e-mail from Shravasti. It referred a report from a local Hindi newspaper. Without wasting a moment, she left her cramped cubicle. Her sneaker-clad feet sliding over white bleached tiles of the Noida office of The New Delhi Post.
She could finally turn something in after being hounded by her boss to keep an eye on North-East UP.
Tarun Javeri looked up from his computer screen in annoyance when he heard someone barge into his office. His expression cleared, however, when he saw who it was. "Do you have something for me? It better not be a fertilizer scam again."
"Oh no, it's exactly what you were looking for," she said, handing him the print-out of the e-mail.
He scanned the report, nodding in approval at the names she had underlined. "Good. Get working on it now so that it's out tomorrow. Front page."
"Main story?" she asked, unable to mask the eagerness in her voice.
"No, our interview with the Union Home Minister is still more important. This'll be on the bottom half. Just as bold though." Tarun smiled. "Take the by-line."
Delhi was wide awake at midnight when Madhu stopped to honk at the guards. She cursed herself for hiring them based on nothing but looks—which was straight out of a period drama—complete with thick heavy moustaches curled upwards, and deep red Rajasthani turbans adorning their heads. Though she was quite sure medieval Rajputana warriors didn't sleep on their job.
She removed her hand from the horn when one of them came rushing out to manually open the gold-painted iron gates, yelling profuse apologies which she ignored.
Fortunately, her receptionist was perfectly attentive when Madhu strode into the lobby. "Have you all pledged to degrade us down to three stars? Why is everyone sleeping? And where's the valet?"
"On a bathroom break. Here I'll give him these," she said taking the keys, level-headed in the face of Madhu's unusual irritability. "Would you have dinner in your room or downstairs?"
"I'm not hungry. Just give something to the dog and ring my father first thing tomorrow morning."
Handing over Chikki to the care of her housekeeping staff, she proceeded straight to her own suite, glad to find it untouched as per her instructions.
Too weary to hold on to the anger anymore, Madhu didn't bother changing or showering. She simply fell on the bed and cried herself to sleep.
Madhu jerked awake to see her father sitting on a chair next to the coffee table, reading The Economic Times.
"What time is it?" she croaked, sitting up.
He didn't look over from the newspaper. "Nine."
A half-eaten breakfast tray was lying on the table. Turning a page, Mahesh Lal clicked his tongue in disapproval when she ditched the bed to sit across from him on the twin chair, biting into a toast. "I need energy to unpack my brush."
"Your Ma would've slapped you and then me for this behaviour."
"Yeah well, she's not here."
At last he abandoned his pretense, putting down the paper. "You said you'll keep me posted."
"I got distracted," she mumbled, washing down the toast with a tall glass of orange juice. God she had missed gourmet meals.
"Distracted planning murders?"
That made her stop gorging. "What?"
In response he only produced another newspaper which had been lying under the tray. She recognised it as Javeri's paper. The top half was occupied by a detailed interview with a cabinet minister but her eyes snapped to the piece directly below it.
Village man lynched within an inch of his life. Delhi heiress; 'national hero' responsible?
Sakshinagar: An isolated village near the Indo-Nepal border witnessed gruesome scenes of violence this week. Tensions due to repeated cattle thefts and smuggling boiled over on Tuesday when villagers framed local landowner Vikram (named changed) over the kidnapping of a girl who was recovered by the police that very same day. He was dragged from his house, stripped naked, beaten with lathies and burned until he fell unconscious.
Sources close to the victim allege that this was done to intimidate him into selling his land, at the behest of Delhi-based hotelier Madhulika Thakur—daughter of advertising mogul M.L. Thakur.
"She needed more land and when I refused to sell mine, she told everyone that I kidnapped Rekha (name changed). The entire district police was looking for the girl at her request, and when they saw I wasn't one of the kidnappers, she told her partner to come after me anyway," says Vikram, who, at the time of the recording of this statement, was undergoing treatment for his injuries at the District Hospital, Sakshinagar.
Another murky detail uncovered by The New Delhi Post is the identity of the man—Nakul Kumar—who incited the mob to lynch Vikram. An ex-Major, now retired from the Indian Army, Kumar is a Kirti Chakra awardee and a close aide of the family of Madhulika Thakur... (cont. on pg. 6).